The British GENES Blog (GEnealogy News & EventS)

Top stories concerning British Isles ancestral research from Irish born Scottish based professional family historian, author and tutor Chris Paton. Feel free to quote from this blog, but please credit British GENES if you do so. Should you wish to get in touch, contact me at christopherpaton @ tiscali.co.uk. Happy hunting!

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Monday, 2 March 2015

Forces War Records (www.forces-war-records.co.uk) has now transcribed over 100,000 records from the "Military Hospitals Admissions and Discharge Registers WW1" collection held at the National Archives in England, catalogued under MH106. From the press release:

What remains of the records... – a sample comprising just 2% of the original, with the rest having been destroyed in space saving exercises – are housed at the National Archives, labelled MH106. Forces War Records is the only organisation to have digitised these incredible hand-written documents, and allows a search by name (the National Archives records are classified by Medical Unit only). If your relative is mentioned in the collection, chances are that this site is the only place you’ll be able to find his name if the survived the war.

Two more historic Nottingham cemeteries' records now available on Deceased Online

All records for two of Nottingham City Council's most historic cemeteries are now available on www.deceasedonline.com.

There are now approximately 430,000 records available online for five cemeteries and the crematorium managed by Nottingham City Council. See full details here.

The two most recently added sites are Rock (aka Church) Cemetery, opened 1856, and Basford Cemetery, opened 1870.

Our resident blogger, genealogist and writer Emma Jolly asks if Rock Cemetery is the most unusual cemetery in England. Read her latest two blogs and explore the history of both Rock and Basford cemeteries.

London, England (February 27th, 2015) Famberry (www.famberry.com), the private collaborative family tree builder, is please to announce the release of “Famberry Search”, an interactive search facility that uses key indicators from your family tree to give you the most relevant search results and an opportunity to connect with related family. The more you add to your family tree the better the Famberry Search results.

In addition to the standard checks for matches as you grow your family tree on Famberry, the Famberry Search facility will help users who have hit brick walls with certain names and want to check for any other families that have connections to specific names.

As part of the announcement Famberry is also releasing GEDCOM import and export facilities to allow users to transfer family tree information from their private applications to the sharable family tree environment of Famberry.

“Famberry Search is for people who want to connect to more than a name, they want to connect to a whole family tree.”

Sign up for free at www.famberry.com to upload your GEDCOM files and start finding connections to family with Famberry Search.

The Society of Genealogists' workshop timetable for Who Do You Think You Are Live 2015 at the Birmingham NEC from 16th-18th April is now available at www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com/workshop-timetable, with plenty of interesting talks from a range of great speakers. I've not submitted any proposals this year, so hope to be able to attend one or two (I've yet to attend a single talk since I first started going!)!

The latest podcast from the National Archives in England (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) is entitled Big Ideas: ‘An heroic, slow-motion cataloguing of life’: ethics and digitisation. It's a 38 minute talk by Helen Wakely, looking at the work of the Wellcome Library’s Special Collections team.

PRONI will be hosting a half day conference examining the Staples family of Lissan, Cookstown, Co Tyrone. Speakers will draw from papers held in PRONI and elsewhere to consider the family’s estates, highlight some of the more colourful members of the Staples family, examine the significance of Lissan House and discuss the work of the Lissan House Trust.

Ireland and Gallipoli Conference - A joint conference by PRONI and Antrim and Down Western Front Association branch
When: 30th April 2015 10am to 4pm
Where: PRONI

PRONI is pleased to invite you to a joint conference on Ireland and Gallipoli with Antrim and Down Western Front Association branch. Supported by Living Legacies 1914-18 engagement centre.

The Gallipoli Campaign, known to the Turkish as the battle of Canakkale, still remains controversial. France, Britain and its dominions fought to eliminate Turkey from the Great War by landing on the northern bank of the Dardanelles, marching on the Ottoman capital Constantinople to open the Dardanelles sea channel to Russia. A brilliant strategic plan was marred by tactical failure and poor execution. The initial naval attack was repelled and subsequent land campaign also failed at a cost of 250,000 allied casualties which led to the invasion force being evacuated in January 1916 after 8 months of fighting. This conference seeks to examine this campaign 100 years on with special focus on the experience and role of Ireland and Irish people.

Genealogy Ebooks (www.gen-ebooks.com) has just started a new regular newsletter to bring you details of all of its latest releases and offers. The first edition includes details of newly released books including my new titles Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis (AU$7.95 = approx £4.02) and Irish Family History Resources Online (2nd edition) (AU$9.95 = approx £5.03), as well as new books from Janet Few ('Til death us do part - causes of death 1300-1948), Noeline Kyle (Nurses & midwives in Australian history - a guide to historical sources), Thomas MacEntee (500 best genealogy & family history tips) and Paul Milner (Buried treasure - what's in the English parish chest).

In addition there will be a monthly promotion in the newsletter for an ebook title and I am delighted to say that the first to be selected selected for this is my book British and Irish Newspapers, which receives a 50% discount for the month of March only. This is now on sale at the BARGAIN price of AU$3.95 (usual price AU$7.95), which works out at just £1.99 in Sterling at current exchange rates!

I have written several other guides for Unlock the Past which are also available in ebook format, including Discover Scottish Church Records (£5.03), Discover Scottish Land Records (£5.03) and Discover Scottish Civil Registration Records (£4.02), and you will also find many other titles on the Genealogy Ebook site from genealogy authors based around the world. (I've indicated the current Sterling equivalent of the AU dollar prices in brackets!). For availability of print copies of my titles (and others) in the UK, Australia and Canada, please visit the Books section at the top of this blog or via http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.

And just to add that for details of genealogy cruises from Unlock the Past, the parent company of Genealogy Ebooks, please visit www.unlockthepastcruises.com!

Thursday, 26 February 2015

Well I've been toying with this as an idea for a while, and have finally bitten the bullet - the British GENES Podcast is born!

The aim of the new monthly podcast will be to bring some of the top stories each month from the British Isles and beyond. In this first edition (where I have been learning to find my feet using sound editing platforms and more!), I look at 3 parent babies, the use of DNA to preserve digital data, the National Records of Scotland's announcement on its future property requirements, historic Ordnance Survey maps for Northern Ireland, the possibility for digital access to English and Welsh vital records, and the value of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland. There's also information on the forthcoming Scottish Research Online course from Pharos Tutors which kicks off next week.

As I get more confident with it I will hopefully bring interviews with some of the great and the good in the local genie scene and wider afield, as well as tips to help with research, and more. At the moment I want to walk before I run! I'm still learning here, so hope to improve how this is recorded in due course (for example there is a minor hum in the background from the PC stack, noted for future reference!)